Tolstoy's Twofold Anti-materialism and its Solution While bedridden for months, Ivan Ilyich continues to cling to life, refusing to fall completely into the "black sack." Yet he is not actually clinging to life, he is cling to his life, or lack thereof. Passing to the next world requires shedding oneself of earthly illusions: in this case Ivan's illusion that he had lived a good life. In the end, he ominously (considering the future of this 19th century Russia) realizes the triviality of two forms of materialism he had previously attached much importance to. The main type of materialism is the manifest materialism. Through this pseudo-ideal, Ivan had made "moving on up," salary, a wealthy looking house, and power his primary priorities. There are three incidences that help Ivan realize the superfluousity this strivings. I will deal with two here, and save the best for last. First, there is the incident in the drawing room. While attempting to fix his house into one that looks rich and important, Ivan falls from a ladder. At the time he believes he has been saved by his extraordinary agility, but eventually he realizes that the tiny bruise hid a massive internal injury. Eventually, it is this injury, caused by his trivialism that kills him a powerful piece of symbolism. Secondly, there is Ivan's encounter with the doctor that reveals Ivan's own arrogance and lust for power. The doctor treats him not as a person, but as a disease, in the same way that Ivan as a judge had nonchalantly handled his prisoners. Feeling the resulting insignificance and inhumanity, Ivan realizes that he too had treated humans as objects in his materialistic mindset. Thus brings us to the second form of anti-materialism, the materialism of human relations. With materialism, all things are treated like objects and related according to set values, rules, and norms. When human relations take on this form of behavior, life becomes inauthentic. Ivan notices that people act how they feel they should act, not as the situation requires. His family refuses to acknowledge his death, which then became "degraded by that very 'propriety' to which he had devoted his entire life." Ivan is spoken to as if in a play containing someone playing the sick role and someone playing the role of doctor. Work, games, and social events are on the mind of people who supposedly are mourning a dying man. Being that his life had been run according to the dictates of these two forms of materialism, Ivan must conclude that his life had not been a good one. But, besides the incidents in the drawing room and with the doctor, a third incident is most important in understand Ivan's revelation. While lying in his sickbed dying, Ivan comes to his memories in hopes of cheering himself up. Soon, he realizes that although his most cherished memories are from his childhood, it is painful to bring them to mind. Childhood is antithetical to the materialistic life he had chosen to live, and only when he accepts the fact that his life was not a good life can he accept the fact that his life had only been good when he was a child. For Ivan, the pleasures of adult life consisted of making money, becoming important, making important social connects, and playing the occasional game of whisk. Such things as these could never compare to the joys of childhood: "playfulness, friendship, and hope." It is true that glimmers of this golden trinity had shown through Ivan's adult life, but only when they are a top priority, and engaged in for themselves, as opposed to for material/social gains, do they truly allow one an authentically pleasing life. Although it takes the act of dying to teach Ivan he has wasted a majority of his life, this understanding allows him in the end to live a good life, if only for a short time, and submit to the "black sack." After this profound revelation, Ivan becomes a child once again, and his family gives him the puerile pity he longs for. He dies happily, genuinely, and relieved of all issue and "the lie." A bleakly depressing tale has a happy ending.